Traveling the world together

LaPorte couple began international trips on honeymoon in 1950.

LaPorte couple began international trips on honeymoon in 1950.

June 22, 2007|SHARON DETTMER Tribune Correspondent

LAPORTE -- Their first major trip together might well have been their last. But it's hard to keep international travelers like Marshall Dittmar, 92, and his wife, Margaret, 88, from doing what they love most -- journeying across the world. Their lifetime of travel experiences together began on their honeymoon on Aug. 12, 1950. After exchanging marriage vows, the couple departed from northwest Indiana on a 34-day, 9,446-mile motor trip through Canada, southwest to LaZarica, Mexico, and then back to West Lafayette, Ind. Six days into the trip, however, the honeymooners overturned their Nash Statesman sleeper in a 360-degree rollover accident in western Canada. "Neither one of us was hurt seriously, but Margaret did have a scratch on her forehead," Marshall recalls. The couple didn't let the accident discourage them from embarking on further journeys to the far ends of the Earth. They have ridden horses and camels in the Gobi Dessert of Mongolia and been to all 50 states in United States, as well as to Puerto Rico, Guam and the Virgin Islands, many times. In fact, they have traveled to every continent -- with the exception of Antarctica. Margaret retired from substitute teaching for Galena Township Schools and the LaPorte Community School Corp. after the couple's three children were raised at their rural home in LaPorte. Marshall, who is a retired independent management engineering consultant, also retired as an Army Reserve commander in 1974. So, Marshall qualified for the military's space-available flight privileges on military aircraft. In 1979, their international travels really took off -- full speed ahead with a 30-day trip to Germany, Greece, Turkey and Spain. In the years following, the couple traveled to different destinations (some countries multiple times), including Hawaii, many European countries, Puerto Rico, the West Indies, Bermuda, Cyprus, Panama, Russia, South Africa, Canary Islands, Australia and New Zealand, and their favorite trip to Mongolia and China in 1998. The 20-day Mongolian Magic Expedition in the summer of 1998 stands out vividly in Margaret's mind as their most unusual travel experience. "It was the least touristy and the most unusual," she says. For example, they watched excavations of large and small dinosaur bones. "We had picnics in the sands of the Gobi Desert. We lived in gers (Mongolian-style tents) in the desert. Inside, the gers are quite lavish," Margaret recalls. "The Mongolian people are very anxious to have people visit their country." Each year added a new travel experience to the couple's long list. In 2003, the Dittmars traveled to Petrikovce, Slovakia, to the birthplace of Margaret's mother, and to Niza Kamenica, Slovakia, to her father's birthplace, before traveling to Germany to see where Marshall's father was born. Other trips abroad followed. In fact, the Dittmars themselves are planning two new trips. They want to travel to India in September and to Paris, Rome and Switzerland in March 2008. Bon voyage.